


accomplices in solitude

by andreoilin



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:53:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28470444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andreoilin/pseuds/andreoilin
Summary: blair and dan are stuck in the city over the winter break.
Relationships: Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf
Comments: 32
Kudos: 90





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> for context; set after 4x11

The first time it happens, it’s out of boredom. 

Everyone is away for winter break, and Blair has spent the entire day moving around her penthouse in a haze. She turns a movie on, then off. Picks up a book, and reads the same sentence four times before putting it back down again. Makes a cup of tea, then forgets about it while it oversteeps. She’s just about desperate enough to regret not joining Serena on her road trip, as she tilts her cup into the sink and watches the lukewarm liquid swirl down the drain. 

She collapses onto her mattress and sighs forcefully, as if trying to physically expel the weight of her ennui from her lungs. 

And, for what feels like the hundredth time that day, Blair’s gaze falls on the small, unassuming ticket lying on her desk taunting her. And, for the first time that day, she commits. 

Blair grabs her coat and purse, opting to leave her pride and better judgement behind. 

It was desperate times, and everyone knew what those called for. 

\--------

It’s only once Blair is seated in the back row of the Nénette screening that she realizes how truly lame this whole situation is. 

Abandoned by Serena, Chuck, her mom, even Nate. 

She’s starting to think Dan won’t show up, and God, wouldn’t that be a failure to top a day of failures, when at last she spots a curly mop of hair walk through the theatre door. 

He’s cradling what is quite possibly the largest serving of popcorn Blair has ever laid eyes on in his arms. His eyes dart around the room. He’s nervous, Blair realizes, and she finds herself inexplicably charmed. 

Dan turns his head in her direction, as if he could feel the weight of her gaze. He scans the rows of half-empty seats, chewing his lip, and then his eyes fall on hers. 

Blair presses her lips together into what she hopes resembles a polite smile. He blinks slowly at her, then tosses her a crooked, hesitant grin. 

The lights dim and the projector light flickers on the screen, breaking the moment. Blair wrenches her eyes back forward. Her cheeks feel very warm. Blair’s suddenly awash with self-doubt. Was this a weird thing to do? Almost certainly, she immediately replies to herself. 

And like that, Dan sits himself down rather ungracefully in the seat directly beside her, unapologetically flouting her three-seat-rule.

\--------

When they leave the Film Forum, the sky outside is midnight blue. The darkness crept in quickly in the Winter. 

The street is quiet, for the Village at least, just the slow slurring of traffic and the distant strain of live music feeble on the air. 

“So, what’d you think?” Dan asks.

“A marvellous achievement of story-telling, although with such an inspirational figure as Nénette at the heart, it would be a feat to not create a moving documentary,” Blair gushes. 

He regards her, eyes glimmering with suppressed amusement. 

“What?” She asks defensively. 

“No, I concur. A marvellous achievement.”

She senses the sarcasm in his voice and decides to ignore it, opting for a roll of her eyes. 

“Well. I better go. It’s late and some of us care about our beauty sleep.” Blair quips, raising her hand to hail a cab. 

“Alright Blair. 'Night.” He sends her off into her cab with a wave, closes the door for her. 

She’s hardly in the door of her apartment when she receives a text. 

Dan: I see Breathless is at the Film Forum

She twists her mouth to the side in thought, formulating a response. She texts back far too quickly. 

Blair: I’ll see you, Film Forum, 8pm sharp, tomorrow.

Dan: Not if I see you first

Blair: Good one, Humphrey. 

She never could resist Godard.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tiny little chapter :)

Once is chance, twice is coincidence, and three times makes a pattern. 

The low thrum of traffic below. A clandestine meeting in Dan's loft with a Hitchcock movie playing on his laptop -- the absurdity of the situation is not lost on Blair.

She had gone to the cinema with Dan two days in a row with no attempts at discretion, and the carelessness was downright uncharacteristic of Blair. And so for the sake of plausible deniability, she had insisted they watch the next film in the Humphrey loft -- Dan had indulged her. He typically did. At least this way some busybody couldn't tip off Gossip Girl that Blair Waldorf was friends with Dan Humphrey. 

Even then, she used the term _friends_ loosely. What they had struck up was more of a... reluctant alliance. And if it meant that Blair could escape Eleanor and watch some classic movies, she wasn’t one to complain. With Rufus and Jenny not home it made sense. 

The Waldorf penthouse could be lonely at times -- everything made of cold marble, the impossibly tall ceilings, the resounding echo in the halls. Especially during the holidays. Blair's dad had called last week to tell her he wasn't going to make to New York for Christmas this year, for the third year in a row. Sometimes it’s nice to get away from there. 

So here she is, in Brooklyn with Dan Humphrey. And it’s not that bad. 

A blanket lies strewn across her legs, soft as though it's been washed a hundred times. The char of incense ash pervades the loft and Blair is momentarily thrown by it, before she is reminded of a conversation in a hallway so long ago that it feels like a different life -- about his mother, the fleeing artist. The hippie mom blood runs deep, she realizes idly. She wonders what other traces of his mom linger in his habits, his home. 

And then she stops wondering because they are not friends. 

When she focuses her attention back on the laptop screen, Grace Kelly and Cary Grant are cruising down the Côte d'Azur. Blair can feel Dan’s eyes on her, and she resists the lure of his face.


	3. Chapter 3

Blair checks her phone, tapping her foot impatiently. 11:15. Plausible deniability? Check. She exhales slowly, her breath a faint plume in the wintery air, and spins on her heel to head towards the entrance to MoMA. 

When Dan had suggested entering the museum at staggered times she had felt a strange surge of pride. 

_“My my, Humphrey. I’m impressed.”_

_“Well, I learn from the best,” Dan replied. ___

__She finds Dan reading the information plaque in front of a bold cubist painting of red and black. With what she hopes is an inconspicuous amount of surprise, she taps him on the shoulder, and he swivels around to face her._ _

__“You really need a haircut,” she snipes by way of a greeting._ _

__“My my, fancy meeting you here,” Dan replies with a raise of his eyebrows, a glint suppressed humour in his eyes._ _

__“Alright Meryl Streep, cool it on the pantomime." She's rewarded with an easy chuckle._ _

__"I’m thinking we start with the Impressionists, work our way up to the Pre-Raphaelites.”_ _

__And so that’s how Blair spends the afternoon - with Dan Humphrey, wandering around admiring art. Among the throng of tourists, they are just two normal people in a sea of normal people, happy to bear witness to the displayed wonders of human creativity._ _

__\--------_ _

__It’s Dan that suggests the coffee, but it’s Blair that accepts the offer. They sit together in the MoMA café, seven floors above the city, arguing while their beverages get cold._ _

__“Monet is art at its best. The colours of Giverny-- the green of the pond, the blues of the lilies,” Blair gushes, “It’s wonderful. What’s wonderful about some paint smeared on a canvas? What good is art if it's intentionally meaningless?”_ _

__Dan shakes his head in disbelief, as if trying to shake the right words loose. “The process of creation is what makes it _art_ , whether you like it or not. I just can’t believe that you could look at a Gerhard Richter and feel nothing at all.”_ _

__Blair shrugs. “Well since you brought it up, Richter is wildly overrated.”_ _

__The look on Dan’s face is as though she had insulted his entire bloodline. “You take that back.”_ _

__“Never.” Blair sips her latte._ _

__His face twitches in incredulity. “You’re like a Russian nesting doll of bad art takes.”_ _

__Blair shrugs. “Sorry for thinking that beneath your great big mop of hair there might have been a dwelling place for a brain.”_ _

__“That’s it, you’re coming with me to the Joseph Beuys exhibit at the Morgan. Tomorrow.” Dan punctuates his demand by draining the final dregs of his americano._ _

__Blair rolls her eyes, but she has to admit-- It feels good to talk to someone who has opinions, and who articulates them. It feels so good, in fact, that she realises how hungry she’s been for it. So far, Dan was actually proving to be good company._ _

__They were stuck with each other, but it was less of a curse than she expected._ _

__\--------_ _

__Dan drags Blair to the Joseph Beuys exhibit, arguing its merit as fiercely as she lambasts it._ _

__He is undaunted by her, and she stings at the thrill of something unknown._ _


	4. Chapter 4

Blair's room is quiet that morning. It's one of their attempts at studying in Blair's room together - her sprawled across the bed, entombed in textbooks and notes. Dan sits on the floor, back against the divan, his pen scratching in his moleskin. 

She pulls her hair back into a bun, Dan rolls his shirtsleeves up. Rain drizzles on the windows. Blair's room is quiet that morning. And then it isn’t.

Dan heaves a sigh and lets his head roll back on the edge of the bed rather melodramatically. 

Blair casts a cursory glance in his direction and decides not to ask.

Eventually, he scoots over on the carpet to sit cross-legged in front of her bookshelf. After a couple of minutes her curiosity is piqued - Blair finds herself kneeling down next to him, joining in his examination of her collection. The majority of it comprises classics, Brontë and Austen and long Russian names attached to long Russian stories where everyone's miserable for a long, long time.

“What are you looking at?” She asks, giving in. 

“Just looking for your copy of _Twilight_ , or your Nicholas Sparks.” Dan says with a smile. He runs his finger across the backs of the books, travelling down the shelves. 

“Well, I apologize for possessing such exceptional taste.”

So naturally Dan spies out the grimiest paperback on the bookshelf, the one she hides down the very bottom. 

"What do we have here?” He says with a satisfied glint in his eyes. She feels a blush creep up her chest and face. “ _What the Heart Wants,_ ” he reads off the cover. 

"That was a stupid gift. From Serena. Years ago."

Dan cocks his head to the side. "Is that right?"

"That's right."

"Looks pretty worn out for a gag gift - an old favourite, perhaps?” He says.

She feels the indignant flush start rising, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring in his general direction. "Don't be juvenile, Humphrey."

He begins to read from the blurb with an excess of amused gravitas. “A destiny neither can deny. An epic soulmate romance. One glance, his soul speaks to hers-”

“Okay, Dan, you've had your fun.” Blair tries snatches the book from his grasp, hurriedly shoving it back onto the shelf. 

“Aren’t you dying to find out what happens? Although, it seems you’ve already found out, multiple times, if the cracked spine is anything to go by.” Blair glares at the grin plastered across Dan’s face.

"Have you read _Pride and Prejudice_?" she asks then, desperate for a subject change and naming the first book she lays her eyes on. 

"I mean, _Pride and Prejudice_ is no _What the Heart Wants_ ," he reminds her.  


"Good one."

"Yeah, I have," he acquiesces, and she's grateful for that. "It was good."

" _Good_?" she scoffs. "Just good?"

"Fine. Maybe I binged the BBC program, and all of the film adaptations immediately after reading it,” Dan concedes. 

"That's more like it." she says, smiling.

They slip back into a comfortable silence, Blair watching Dan as he scans her shelves, picking out a title here and there and flipping through the pages idly. Her eyes are drawn to his hands.

She’s surprised when he speaks again. “Do you like... that stuff?”

“Hm?”

“The… soulmates, and stuff. Do you believe any of it?” Dan is somewhere between teasing and genuinely talking to her - which, she admits, is his default state. 

Blair frowns, contemplating the question. “I mean… I find it hard to believe the universe is conspiring to bring people together. And if it is, it’s doing a terrible job. The divorce rate alone is a compelling argument against the existence of soulmates.”

“But-”

“But that doesn’t mean you don’t want one.” Dan finishes for her. “Wow, Blair. You’re the universe’s marionette after all.” 

“Shut up,” she says. Then, “What about you?”

Dan shrugs. “I don’t think love is some pre-ordained thing. I think you grow into becoming soulmates with somebody. Like, you grow together, to the point where you are so intertwined or just so deeply in love that you kind of made your own soulmate.”

She is momentarily surprised by the candor of his response. She suddenly feels like the only reason why he is a mystery to her is because she’s never made an effort to ask him anything. 

“Who knew you were such a romantic, Humphrey.” Blair teases, trying to seem uncharmed.

He rolls his eyes in what she recognises as a very Blair-like manner. For a moment, she wonders if she has picked up any of his habits. There’s a long gap of silence and in the end she determines that he’s not going to fill it, so she does. 

“I have no idea why you have the authority to be the Book Police. I saw that copy of _The Da Vinci Code_ in your room.”

And that's how they spend the evening, cross-legged on her bedroom floor, talking about the worst books ever written.


	5. Chapter 5

Winter is unrelenting, and the frosted pavement crunches under Blair’s heels as she walks to the now all-too-familiar apartment block. 

At his door, his reply to her confident knock is prompt: "It's open."

Blair strides in to the loft to find Dan sitting at his desk. The argent waning light streams softly in from the windows, illuminating the plaster and brick. She sees him hunched over his laptop, face lit up in the glow of the screen and eyes rising to meet hers. 

“What are you doing?” She asks the question before he can query her presence in his home. 

“Tap dancing.” 

She sends him a look. 

“Writing, Blair. I’m writing.”

Mildly intrigued, she moves to peer at his laptop screen. But before she can take two steps towards him, Dan closes the laptop with an urgent slam. She pouts. 

"Nope... strictly my eyes only." Dan defends, dropping her eye contact. Then he frowns. “I don’t recall requesting the pleasure of your company, Blair.”

Blair continues to rifle through the various newspapers on his desk evasively. “You know what I want?”

“World peace?”

“Sushi,” Blair replies. 

“I knew there was a reason I put up with you.”

“I put up with _you,_ actually,” Blair corrects. “God knows why.”

Dan gives her a knowing look. “My devilish good looks,” he says. 

“Mm. No, that can’t be it.”

“Well, it’s definitely not my personality,” he retorts. 

“Most definitely not.”

\--------

Later that night, chopsticks and empty sushi trays scattered on the coffee table, the city lights pouring in from the picture window, Blair’s eyes drift closed. A film drones on in the background. There’s a moment where she almost resists, and then she shuffles over slightly, lays her head against Dan's shoulder. 

She knows she should leave. Prevent things from being awkward. But she keeps not doing it and so he stays beside her, warm and comfortable. 

“I should go,” she breathes. 

“It’s okay.”

“I should really…” 

“Go to sleep, Blair.”

She meant to extricate herself and crawl home into her own bed. She kept rehearsing it in her head with her eyes closed, until she wasn’t awake anymore. 

\--------

When she wakes, the metallic grate of the key in the lock is the first thing she’s aware of. Blinking away the sleepiness, the sight of Dan at the door comes into focus, wearing the same outfit as last night. He carries a drinks holder bearing three coffee cups, steam billowing from their lids. The aroma of hot coffee hits her nose.

“How nice of you to join us." He gives her a slight smile. "Morning."

"Morning." She smiles sheepishly back at him. As she stretches, she discovers her back aches and she winces at the dull pain.

"I figured you'd need a coffee after sleeping on that couch for the night," Dan explains, offering her a coffee cup with an apologetic look, which Blair gladly accepts.

Blair blinks as the memory returns, temporarily forgotten by slumber. She had slept over. In Dan's. On his couch. With Dan. Oh, _God._ Something unknown burns deep in her gut.

Blair finally musters up a reply. "And what, two coffees for you?" She gestures to the remaining cups in the holder. 

"Oh, yeah, I wasn't sure what you took in your coffee. So, here." He passes her the cup, looking abashed. Blair opens it to find it stuffed full of sugar packets and wooden stirrers. 

_Oh, God._ The burning in her gut swells and Blair is suddenly overcome with the need to flee. She looks up at Dan, and it's a mistake, because his eyes are still bleary and his hair is mussed and he looks so open, so guileless. 

Blair tears her eyes away. She needs to leave. Now. 

"I need to leave. Now." Dan has the wherewithal to look vaguely chastised, but the endlessly hopeful man manages to keep going. "If you want to take a shower first I'm sure I could find some of Vanessa's clothes you could wear-"

"Thanks, but I'm not sure a poncho is the look I'm going for." Blair interrupts, finding sanctuary in sarcasm. Before Dan can voice the counter-arguments waiting on his tongue, Blair plucks up her coat from the armchair, hastily slips into her pumps.

She rides the elevator down in a trance, coffee still clasped, forgotten, in her hand. The morning sky is a pale blue and falling sleet sticks to her mohair coat, dashes of white melting away like candy floss. 

She shivers as she hails a cab. Blair doesn't think about the sugar packets, or the look on Dan's face as she left. The nameless burning persists.


	6. Chapter 6

“Allen key?” Dan says, a hand emerging from beneath the desk, waiting. Unfortunately his head was craned under the desk too, so he missed a spectacular scowl from Blair in response. Truly some of her best work. 

“Who?” Blair frowns. 

“Could you pass me the allen key,” Dan clarifies. 

“If you think I have any clue what that is, you’re delusional, Humphrey,” Blair replies, punctuating the sentence with a flip of her magazine. 

Blair hadn’t intended to spend her day in the Humphrey loft again, but when she’d called by to see if Dan wanted to go to the Morgan with her, she had been greeted at the elevator by a red-faced Dan, panting heavily and struggling to lug a cardboard box into his apartment. IKEA was printed on all sides of the box, and Blair remembered him mentioning his plan to turn Vanessa’s old room into an office. So she’d figured the loft was as good a place as any to catch up on her fashion magazines, and maybe get some schadenfreude from Dan’s attempt at assembling furniture. What could she say - her options for entertainment were limited.

A heavy sigh sounded from under the desk. With some exaggerated gestures bordering on melodramatic, Dan emerged from the desk, plucked the tool from where it lay on the coffee table, beside her feet, and held it in front of Blair. “Allen key.” 

Blair fixes Dan with her best saccharine smile. 

\--------

As a reward for all her hard work building the desk, Dan cracks open a bottle of red he finds stashed away in the back of a cupboard. 

Two and a half glasses later, they’re on the couch, talking, with an episode of _I Love Lucy_ in the background. 

It’s easy, talking to Dan. She hadn't seen that one coming. It's easy to listen to him, too. She likes the sound of his voice, the baritone of it - sweet and dark, like bitter chocolate. Sometimes she wants to close her eyes when he's talking, let that voice roll on over her skin. Make her softer.

This, for the record, is the sort of stuff Blair only thinks after a couple glasses of wine, when they're sitting together on his couch with the sky blackening outside the windows. When she's too relaxed to know better. She thinks she'd rather die than say any of this out loud. 

The discovery of a like mind is absurd and intoxicating, and they talk through the evening - he tells her about Serena. She knows a thing or two about toxic love, and she tells him about that, and it turns her stomach to say it out loud but he never starts looking at her like she's some kind of monster.

“Do you still love her?”

Maybe it’s because of the wine, or the late, honest hour, but Dan doesn’t seem at all surprised by the question.

She leans back into the couch and watches him. Dan doesn't look back at her. He looks at the wall instead while he talks, like there's something really fascinating on that patch of exposed brick behind her, like it holds the secrets to all of life's mysteries. He says he really thought he loved Serena for awhile there in spite of himself, but he always knew it was stupid to do it.

"I'm sure you're not the only one who's guilty there," she says, and she doesn't mean for it to sound petty but sure enough, it comes out that way. "Falling for Serena, I mean." 

"Oh yeah?" he asks, looking back at her, raising his eyebrows. "There something you need to tell me, Blair?"

"Cute," she scowls. Rolls her eyes.

Dan shrugs a little, pleased with himself.

 _Don’t tell him,_ she warns herself, but he’s so tender and proud and something within her aches with profound excitement when she looks at him. She stares down into her glass. It's almost empty. "For a little while there," she says, hating herself even as she does it, "I really thought he chose me."

Dan's quiet so long that it starts to burn, and she wants so bad to inhale the words right back into her mouth. Then, simply: "He should've."

"True," she says. That's what she has to say, isn't it? 

He doesn't push it. After a few seconds, he knocks his foot against the side of hers. It's a dumb little gesture. It makes her feel better.

"I hope he's okay," she says, meaning it.

Dan doesn't quite sigh. "I hope she is, too."

They clink their glasses together: it makes sense to do it, even as it leaves her wondering why. Neither of them says anything, and thank God for that. She knows she couldn't stand hearing whatever that meant out loud - To love that's lost, maybe. Something pitiful and sentimental. She might be a fool, but she tries not to broadcast it out loud.

At least she's in good company.


	7. Chapter 7

They slip into the café, cheeks blushed with cold. He tells her to pick a table and he’ll get their coffees. It feels harmless enough, one of Dan's spots in Brooklyn, far from Gossip Girl's prying eyes. Still, she settles on the table farthest from the window. Blair was wary of doing things like this, going out like normal people, shrugging off their carefully-woven cloak of secrecy. She’s pretty sure Dorota’s onto them, at the very least. Regardless, they've made plans to go to the Film Forum again - fifteen minutes of plausible deniability included, of course. A Fellini double bill was worth the risk, she conceded. 

When Dan joins her at the table he places a latte in front of her. Blair watches as Dan peels back the foil from a pod of cream and lets it spill into his cup, the stormy billow of white into black. They sit in silence, nursing their coffees.

“Fuck, it’s hot in here,” Dan mutters, shucking off his coat. Some secret, traitorous part of her loves it when he says 'fuck'.

Blair’s legs brush against his under the small table. She fixes her gaze resolutely over his shoulder, and notices a blonde girl whose face she can’t quite place glancing towards Dan in what she can only assume is an attempt to get his attention.

“Someone’s got an admirer,” Blair teases, spreading the fingers over her cup, letting the steam slip through the spaces in between.

He looks down the café and sees who has caught her attention. He raises a hand in greeting and turns back to Blair.

“That’s Vanessa’s friend, Katie. She’s from my Contemporary Lit seminar.” _Katie._ Blair stole another glance in the girl's direction. History could confirm that Dan had a thing for blondes with pretty smiles. 

“Let me guess. She’s single.” 

“Yeah, I think so. Why?” Blair rolls her eyes at him.

“What?” He gets defensive. “It’s not like that. She wanted me to help her with her assignment, said she could use a hand.”

“Of course she _needed a hand_. Handsome, brooding writer? That’s lit student kryptonite. You may be mere schlock on the Upper East but in NYU territory, that makes you quite a catch.” She smirks and looks down at the table, as if just offering a friendly insight.

“You’re giving me whiplash with these backhanded compliments, Waldorf." There's a satisfied glint in his eyes that belies his nonchalant reply.

“Too bad you don’t have more game,” she says, stirring a sugar into her coffee with one of those brittle wooden stirrers just to have something to do with her hands. “Maybe you could talk the bohemian beatnik into taking you home.”

“What?” he says indignantly. “I absolutely have game. You don’t even know how much game I have. And need I remind you that you also go to NYU? So thanks for confessing to my irresistible charm.” He punctuates his final point with a wide gesticulation that Blair deems far too celebratory.

She stands and shakes out the creases in her dress, suddenly uncomfortable with the atmosphere she has created. “I object to such slander. Now if you excuse me, I’m getting a croissant.”

\--------

That evening the theatre is nearly empty, but still, they choose two sticky red seats in the very back row. Dan gloats about knowing Italian, Blair elbows his arm. In the flickering shadows they sneak glimpses at each other, and Blair gets a rush whenever she catches him glancing her way. 

She couldn’t blame Katie one bit. 


	8. Chapter 8

The marble chambers of the Met are crowded and dim, and Blair feels blissfully anonymous in the bedlam of tourists, schoolchildren, and retirees. They roam companionably through a collection of landscapes, bumping into each other more frequently than could be construed as coincidental. If Dan walks a little too close as he passes behind Blair on his meander, if he lingers a little too long behind her -- well, she can’t exactly say she minds it. She likes his attention. His interest in her. Being the object of someone’s restraint.

Blair pauses to skim the information plaque in front of the nearest painting. She feels the air around her stir a little, and her skin prickles as he sidles up behind her. Dan in all his studiousness, his shoulder leaning into hers. 

She stands with her shoulders rigid and goosebumps prickled on the back of her neck, with her body so close to his, and every part of it determined to pay attention to entirely the wrong thing. Then his lips ghost over the crest of her ear, soft as a shadow.

“The guy really liked his lilies, huh?” His breath burns her ear. The big, busy room feels suddenly airless and Blair can’t keep from swaying back, grazing him just a little.

“Actually, considering the range of his entire catalogue, the water lilies paintings constitute a small portion of his repertoire,” Blair counters, assuming the contrarian position on instinct.

“Look, I get it. If it ain’t broke…” She can almost hear the smile on his lips. She turns her head to find him looming over her, like he is sharing a secret, a clandestine intimacy that takes her breath away. She watches his face, the way his eyes dart from the top to the bottom of the piece, reading the brushstrokes.

She would need to start breathing soon, she supposes.

But then Dan clears his throat and steps back, puncturing the hushed moment. She watches him stroll through to the next room of paintings with an exaggerated nonchalance.

Blair stands staring at the painting for far longer than necessary, before willing herself to wander through.

\--------

Fireplace crackling, wine in her blood. Blair swirls the cabernet, watches the dark liquid stain the glass. She could hear water streaming into the tub upstairs as Dorota drew her a bath, and she's looking forward to submerging herself in the brew of lavender and jasmine.

Blair’s reverie is interrupted by the sound of the elevator stuttering to a halt. Utterly bewildered as to who would have the audacity to call at such a late hour, she rounds the corner to the hall in perfect time to hear the doors sliding open and none other than Dan Humphrey emerging. Of course.

He’s still wearing his pea coat from earlier in the museum. But there’s a scattered look in his eyes, an unravelling of his edges. She finds she doesn’t know what to say.

“What are you doing here?” It comes out all wrong, all acerbity and accusation. She’s too tired for this.

He shimmers like a mirage as he steps under the chandelier.

“I’ve been walking around the city all night with one all-consuming, paralysing thought.”

Fuck. “Why am I walking around the city when I live in Brooklyn?” she tries.

If he hears the sarcasm in her voice, he is an expert at ignoring its existence. “What if there’s another reason we’re keeping us a secret.”

He takes a deep breath, and Blair is terrified. Terrified that they’re going to talk about it, and she’s going to have to think about it. To slide it into focus, rather than let it exist as the backdrop of this picture of them. Of Dan and Blair. She wishes they could live forever in this space in between, where anything is possible.

“Another reason like what?”

“‘Plausible deniability’? Blair, we keep us a secret because we're afraid there's something more.” She feels her cheeks infuse red.

“You need to go back to Brooklyn-” she stutters, the emptiest of empty words. She stands silently, waiting for him to laugh it off or do something equally flippant. But he just stands there.

“Not until I know for sure… that there’s nothing between us.” He’s slinking closer and there’s that static, that familiar rumbling in the air from the museum.

And Blair doesn’t ask, _do you feel that too?_ Doesn’t ask, _what does any of this mean?_ Her pride makes her try to look tough, unbothered, even though she’s nothing but soft and confused.

“I can guarantee it.” She shrugs, but it’s stiff and chips off her shoulders like old paint.

He brings his hand to her shoulder, ghosts the pad of his thumb against her spaghetti-strap. His fingers are chilled, unthawed from the cool outdoors as they graze her shoulder, but she’s so flushed and overheated that it feels wonderful, like liquid silver, like water.

“But just so you’re secure in that knowledge, what did you have in mind?”

“Just one kiss.” Dan’s voice was elaborately casual but his chest was heaving now. His adam’s apple danced as he swallowed. “Then we can know without a doubt.”

“I suppose that would work. One kiss. That’s that.” She manages, blinking up at him. He returns her gaze, and they look at each other, quietly, boldly. Up close, his eyes were raw umber, warm and mellow.

“One kiss… and that’s that. So…”

“So…” her voice is tiny and frail and her mouth is dry. He stares back at her with blistering intention, lowers his gaze to her mouth. The space between then is heavy, charged with gravity.

“Oh for crying out loud, Humphrey.” Blair exclaims, and self-preservation and plausible deniability be damned, she vaults up on her toes, drags him down by his lapels, and crushes her lips against his.

And then he’s kissing her, and she’s kissing him back. He’s got her face in both hands and his body all pressed against hers and she doesn’t know what to do with her own hands. Where do people put their hands? She’s just grasping at his chest in a way that a more dignified version of herself could recognise as mortifying, and his mouth is sloppy and sort of earnest against hers. He lowers his hands, runs them over her waist and hips. She’s just starting to forget to pretend that this doesn’t mean anything, when some still semi-functioning part of her brain notices that the sound of running water has ceased, and has been replaced by footfall.

It’s like a shock to her system. Blair stifles an embarrassing noise, springing from some place within her that was apparently really into Dan Humphrey kissing her. _Get this back to where it should be_ , she tells herself. _Take control again._ So with all the willpower she can muster, Blair withdraws her lips from Dan’s. When she takes a step back it’s a small consolation to see that Dan appears just as dazed as she feels.

An agonising moment of silence stretches between the two, a question aflame in Dan's eyes. "Well. One kiss... _check."_ Blair tries for glib, accompanying the remark with another unsure step backwards towards the staircase. 

“Miss Blair, your bath is ready,” Dorota’s voice calls down to her from above, her footsteps approaching.

“I better…” Blair’s words die on her lips.

“Good night, Blair.” Dan says. His face is burning red. His voice couldn’t be more than a whisper but still sounds far too loud in the echoey hall. When the elevator doors slide shut, she doesn’t let herself focus on how Dan lingered, or the sudden emptiness. She bites her lip and refuses to acknowledge the burning in her gut.

\--------

That night in bed, sleep eludes Blair. Her skin burns with the memory of Dan's hands on her body -- she can feel the echo of his touch on her skin like heat, like glow in the dark hand prints on her flesh. Is he awake, too? What is he thinking? 

_Well. One kiss... check._

Blair cringes and sighs, resigning herself to sleeplessness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kiss & dialogue from 4x17 :)


	9. Chapter 9

It was just a kiss.

It was just a kiss, so Blair doesn’t know why it makes her stomach all fluttery and anxious, why she refuses to call Dan for a week, why she keeps it completely to herself.

Really, it’s just like old times. She stares at the empty inbox on her phone and wonders if what happened between them is just over without either of them mentioning it. If it was over before it even began.

Blair refuses to sulk, because she does not deserve the satisfaction of sulking -- not when her own stupidity played such a starring role in what happened. She could only chalk the kiss up to exactly that; a moment of stupidity. It was the boredom. The isolation. And she vows not to let _it_ or _anything like it_ happen again.

Blair spends Christmas in typical Waldorf fashion -- with ice-skating in Central Park and festive sugar cookies. Celebrations with Eleanor last about half a day, and then it's back to the drawing board to finalize the Waldorf Designs Spring/Summer line. Blair's pretty sure her mother schedules it down to the minute.

So the days pass and Blair scarcely leaves the house. She tells herself it’s got nothing to do with Dan or the kiss, that it’s just because there’s nothing worth seeing in the theatres and no good exhibitions in the galleries. But the reality is that all the places they’d visited together -- all her favourite places, had at some point become reminders of some shared contentment.

Ultimately, it’s Dorota who dares to broach the subject. “You have not seen Mr. Humphrey in a week now.”

“Has it been a week? I hadn’t even noticed.” Blair tries for nonchalance. “And why does it even matter?”

Dorota shrugs. “I don’t know, you and Mr. Humphrey have been spending lot of time together lately. I was thinking maybe you were growing a... _thing_ for him.”

“That’s interesting, because I was just thinking that you were going _crazy_ ,because that’s the only way you could concoct such a ludicrous theory.”

\--------

The next morning, Dorota returns from the local bakery and thrusts a brown paper bag into Blair’s hands. Upon further inspection, Blair discovers her favoured almond croissant, and a decadent maple and pecan Danish -- Dan’s usual order. Honestly, she had to be impressed by Dorota’s observation skills.

“Go. Give to Mr. Humphrey now. No more rewatching _Pride and Prejudice_.”

And so Blair, feeling a peculiar mixture of called-out and relieved, finds herself hailing a taxi to Brooklyn. Because, truth be told, she missed him. She, Blair Waldorf, missed Dan Humphrey. She missed his stupidly bad art opinions and stupidly bad jokes. She makes the journey with determination that things will _not_ be awkward.

\--------

When he answers the door, he practically does a double take. “Blair, hi,” he gets out.

“Hi,” she replies weakly. “Here. Take this.” Not sure what to say, she thrusts the bakery bag into his hands, and he eyes it warily as if he expects an explosive within.

“It’s a danish.”

“Oh, cool, thanks.” They’ve never had a problem making small talk before, but the kiss-shaped elephant in the room seems to be making a mockery of their ability to behave like normal adults who are friends. She takes in the ink staining his fingertips as they grip the bag. _He’s been writing_ , she thinks absent-mindedly.

“Can I come in? I think we should talk,” Blair says finally.

“Yeah, sure, of course, come on in,” Dan says apologetically, standing to the side and holding the door open for her. Blair walks in, then lingers at the threshold awkwardly.

“So,” says Blair.

“So,” Dan says back.

Then they chew in some tense silence for a while, regarding each other.

“Well,” he finally says, “good talk. Glad we had it.”

“You’re free to start it yourself, you know.” Blair says.

Dan heaves out a sigh. “Well, I… I guess I want to say that I’m sorry. I mean, what I did, it was just monumentally stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking. So, I just wanted you to know that it was an impulse. Plain and simple. One that has left my body. Permanently. Promise.” He says all this in one breath, examining a scuff on his left shoe with great attentiveness.

“It’s okay, Dan. I mean, something isn’t a big deal unless you let it be. And it’s not a big deal. Why get upset? I mean it obviously meant nothing.”

“Right. Obviously. Because what I did was a mistake.”

“Right, because we… we would never...” Blair continues tentatively, regretting saying it already.

“No, hey,” Dan says, waving his head and looking strained, “you don’t have to--”

“I didn’t mean--,” Blair blurts. “Stop- stop looking like that. With your face.”

“With my face?” Dan echoes, incredulous. “Am I doing something with my face?”

“Something I don’t like,” Blair says, clearing her throat and refusing to look away. He blinks at her, bemused. “Quit it.”

“Okay. Consider it quit.”

“Okay.” Blair says. They stare at each other for another minute.

“Right. Well, um, I guess that puts us back to being _friends_.”

They engage in an awkward shaking of hands.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

“We just used up the word okay,” Dan says. “I think we have officially exhausted the word.”

“Alright. I should probably get going.”

“I’ll see you later, Blair.”

“I’ll see you later Dan.”


End file.
